The Coffee Shop AU
by Rhombea
Summary: He really didn't like this place, no matter how often he visited the small coffee shop. But sometimes, people don't come for the coffee and Katsuki might be one of those. (Bakugou Katsuki X OC)


Normally, he really hated these kinds of places.

There were these huge, red chairs people could lounge in and the enormous curtains hanging from the top of the windows, falling down to the ground like a mess. Hell, the coffee wasn't even good or, well, not to Katsuki's taste at least. Sometimes he liked the bitterness, sometimes he preferred sweeter drinks. Or energy cans. It varied.

He really couldn't stand that particular shop. Every day it was swarmed by all kinds of students, getting their mocha frappuccino with soy milk and iced-blacks in a variety of cups and mugs that they offered. Without being really aware of it, he could literally recite every order there was after visiting the store a few times already. That's just how much he hated the place.

In Katsuki's opinion, it smelled terrible in here. Worse than when he gets caught in his own bombs. It was an old, coffee-soaked smell with a hint of vanilla. Katsuki despised vanilla, it was too sweet in his opinion. And these old chairs mentioned? Awful, they make you want to stay in them and sleep for a while. However, even though he complained all day long and throughout the whole trip, the idiots that always invited him always wanted to come here.

And so they did.

And he hated it.

Well, admittedly, there was one thing he didn't absolutely hate. It irritated him, and he hated that, but he didn't actually hate the reason for his irritation. The reason being: The barista. Now, one could argue that of all people, that girl shouldn't be a barista. She was obviously unsuitable for this job. She didn't smile, spoke in a way to monotone voice and her eyes never even sparked up when she was told jokes. Katsuki saw people come in all day long, making fun with her, but she just never reacted. At all.

She just stood at the counter, never moving at all, barely even breathing as it seemed. Katsuki wondered if she was doing okay or if that was actually something very serious she should be treated for. But she did a decent job, that much credit he had to give her. Katsuki took another long slurp on his straw, the end of it already hitting an empty bottom. The sound of air being drawn out annoyed him, so he bit down onto the plastic, crunching it with his teeth.

Another awful function of the chairs was their rotating-mechanism. Who in this day and age used rotating chair anyway. With a stomp of his right foot, he swung around to the people he was with, taking his eyes of the charming barista, to focus on the group of idiots around him. They all sat very close around the small - annoyingly way to small table - books spread out and their drinks standing around messily.

Apparently, Momo had promised to help Eijiro with some of the homework, while Deku and Ochaco probably just joined because they were able to awkwardly hold small talk. On Momo's other side sat Denki, too busy looking into his books to notice Katsuki staring at him. And next to Katsuki himself, Shoto was peaceful drinking on his iced coffee. Maybe that was like his thing, drink hot drinks that are cooled down to repress his emotions. Not that Katsuki really cared for him enough to question this.

With a click of his tongue, Katsuki turned in his chair again, standing up when his legs had more room to spread. "You're going somewhere, Kacchan?" Deku almost immediately asked when he saw his fellow hero-in-training get up. "Get more coffee," he simply explained, going a few steps away from the group before hearing Denki shout out to him. "Can you get me a-" He didn't come further as he was harshly interrupted. "Get it yourself, you dick!" Katsuki shouted, loud enough for the store to get quiet for a short second, the bustling setting in almost immediately.

"No coffee for me, I guess," Denki said, staring at his empty, dirty mug.

Standing in line was annoying. If he had used his quirk, everyone would have surely walked out of his way. Though admittedly, the store wouldn't stand anymore afterwards and Katsuki knew from experience it was a hell to explain why he blew up the building. So he took his stand at the end of it, whipping on his feet as he waited. The empty mug in his hand suffered a great deal, being used as an anti-stress toy and squeezed by his grip quite a few times.

"Multiple uses, my ass," he mumbled, giving the lady in the line before him a growl as she turned around, wondering if he was speaking to her. With every second he seemed to get less patient than the second before. Standing on tiptoes and leaning side to side, he tried to see if the queue was moving at all, figuring out quickly it wasn't. The reason? A young, slick gentleman, leaning against the counter, talking to the barista.

Oh, of all things, he hated that the most.

There was no one behind him and only two other persons before him, but that asshole of a human decided it was time to flirt the hell out of the barista, and Katsuki was so not having it. When he listened intently, he could hear the somewhat one-sided conversation they were having, going back and forth between the two. He had seen many people trying to warm up the girl on the counter with the long, white hair and the just as ice-cold, blue eyes. They actually had a beautiful, pale blue color, but who really looked at each other's eyes anymore, not he.

"You are so pretty, you should be a model!" that man leaning on the counter said. _She would be if you let her do her damn job and earn money,_ Katsuki thought.

"Thanks," the barista replied, tapping on her pad to make orders. "With cream?" she asked, indifferent to the man's words.

"Honey, you can put all the cream you want on top of it."

That comment made Katsuki gag. So he was a real asshole now as if stopping the line in a coffee shop wasn't enough already.

"Okay, so with cream, is that correct?" she reconfirmed, the man wiggling his brows in reply. _Dis-gust-ting,_ Katsuki thought, seeing the provoking gesture.

"On top, you can add your number, how's that?" Mr. Fantastic asked, sounding more like a demand than a question really. Katsuki groaned loudly, irritating the people around him and even the man seemed to get the hint, as he finally stood up from his leaned position, swiftly taking out his wallet and handing the barista a credit card. Black AMEX, of course. "But you know…" he started again. Katsuki could feel his last strings of patience dissolving in his brain. How hard could it be to get a freaking coffee in a coffee shop?

"We should totally hang out some time. I can introduce you to a lot of big people with a lot to offer and they-"

"Hey, kissass," Katsuki's voice sounded from behind. Funnily, the man turned around, feeling called out. "Who, me?" he asked, pointing his finger at himself before straightening his back. Wrinkles emerged from the skin on his face, and he opened his mouth to complain but was cut off by Katsuki. "Yeah, you. Don't see anyone else standing shit-deep in his own word-vomit, do you?"

To Katsuki it was funny seeing the man's head get deep red at the insults, though he didn't pity him. He got what he deserved after all. "Are you going to let her do her job now or do you want to rub your old, greasy face all over the counter for the rest of all time? I've been waiting for my coffee since a while now, you fuckhead!" Much to Katsuki's own surprise, the people before him agreed with him, letting out their own frustration, even though they were quieter while they were at it, than the young hero.

With his head red and a sour expression, the man took back the credit card which the barista held out to him, letting out a frustrated, "Outrageous!" and stomping to the back of the register, waiting for his coffee. "Have a good day," the barista said after him, though he probably didn't hear it over his own mumbling. Finally, there was some movement in the line and in just two minutes it was finally Katsukis turn to order.

Even though he didn't mean it in a bad way, he banged the mug on the counter. The poor thing was nothing more than a sad pulp by now, mangled and deformed. Both of them just looked at it for a few seconds, unsure of what to say. "I want another one," Katsuki explained, sounding more demanding than anything. He was still kind of bitter for having to stand in line for so long.

"Would you like a new cup?" she asked in return, giving him a wry side-glance as she looked up at her order-pad again. "I guess," he replied. It got quiet between them again, the barista taking the mangled mug and shoving it under the counter, probably into a bin beneath her. It finally gave him a small chance to give her a better look over.

Katsuki guessed she might be pretty. But being surrounded by weirdos all day as he was, made her look awfully plain. Her white hair was dutifully braided into a long braid, hanging over her shoulder and her eyes seemed very focused on the pad before her, brightened by the light it emitted. There was a name tag on the brown apron she was wearing on top of a black shirt. Katsuki would have had to look over the counter to determine the color of her pants or whether she was even wearing pants. But since he saw other baristas running around before, he figured black pants and a black shirt was just their dress code. Her name was Koge. Or at least, that was the name she wanted to show to the customers.

"Another large mocha frappe with a double shot of espresso?" Koge asked, her hand halting for a second until he replied. "Uh, yeah," he stuttered, realizing he was very fixated on her. "My name's-" he wanted to add, knowing they had this stupid policy to ask for names so no one would get the wrong drink in the rush hours. "Katsuki, I know," she interrupted him, and for only a moment he could have sworn that his name was accompanied by a small smile on her lips.

"Yeah…" he confirmed, watching her write down the information on his coffee intently. "That's an explosive mixture," Koge noted, a small smirk returning to her lips, together with a light flush of pink on her cheeks. These little reactions fascinated him, not knowing if he had noticed them anytime before that he had visited this place. A big, cocky grin spread over his mouth, and he replied, "I like it that way."

He heard a soft chuckle from the barista as she set down the cup to the side, so her co-worker could pick it up and work on the order. She told him the amount he had to pay, and Katsuki fished for his money in the depths of his pockets, bringing forth some crumbled notes and coins that jumped all over the counter. Koge helped him sort things out before handing him the receipt, and he plunged it right back into the same pocket.

"Enjoy your coffee, Katsuki," she said, smiling softly at him. Maybe it was just his imagination, but she did seem to smile at people. Very different from what he had assumed. "You too," he said before leaving for the end of the counter, noticing way too late that it was idiotic to say that to a barista. He groaned inwardly about this mishap, waiting for his name to be called and picking up his drink.

It wasn't a long walk back to his friends, and he had maybe spent ten minutes of his life in the queue and at the counter, but they still looked at him as if he had returned after a long period of being missing. "Where's my coffee?" Denki asked, just getting an annoyed look back from Katsuki. "Told you, get it yourself."

Shaking his head, Denki muttered "Rude" before returning to his studies. "We heard you all the way to here. Sounded like you were having a good time," Eijiro teased, big smirk on his face. "Not exactly a good time," Katsuki replied, slurping on his drink for the first time. It still tasted awful, but man, that stuff was really explosive, Koge wasn't kidding there. "You seem to get along well with the barista," Deku noted, flinching when Katsuki replied in his usual booming manner.

"What'cha mean, Deku-dumb-nut?"

Suddenly everyone seated around the - still annoyingly small table - looked up and at him. Or actually, at his cup, giving him serious and questionable looks. "You might want to turn that," Momo advised, twirling the pen in her hand around to put emphasize on her words. "Huh?" escaped Katsuki, as he tugged his hand in to look at the back. Sure enough, there was more than just the usual ticks and his name written on it.

"Thanks for ordering! Hope to see you again tomorrow."

Katsuki couldn't help but swing the awful, big chair around, facing the counter again and sure enough, even though there was a customer in front of her, Koge looked back at him, smiling for a short moment, before returning to her work with the same dull expression than before.

Normally, he really hated these kinds of places.

Maybe he'd hate it a little bit less tomorrow.


End file.
